


Twenty-Six Years

by lauawill



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:09:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28807101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauawill/pseuds/lauawill
Summary: Chakotay looks back at the moment that started it all. Belongs to the "Time on My Hands" cycle, which includes "Available Light," "Never Young," and "Bedtime Stories,” plus the main story, “Time on My Hands.” But you need not have read any of those to enjoy this. (Although they're fun, too.)
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 22
Kudos: 110





	Twenty-Six Years

**Author's Note:**

> I read that Voyager premiered on this day twenty-six years ago. So I did this. Enjoy.

26 Years

January 16, 2021

The crash from downstairs wakes me with a jolt, and I sit bolt upright in bed.

The pale green curtains permit only the faintest bit of sunlight from the windows; it must be very early. I sit still, listening for more noise from downstairs. Is it just the dog sniffing for a discarded treat in the kitchen? Nina the Night Owl finally on her way up to bed? One of the boys sneaking in from the late-night trysts we pretend not to know about? An intruder, or just the wind slamming the back door that someone is always forgetting to latch?

There’s another thump from downstairs, and then my daughter’s voice in a furious hiss. “Guys, you’re _doing_ it wrong!”

I relax and smile. That child. So like her mother.

Except that my wife, the original Night Owl, now sleeps the sleep of the dead and has ever since we moved our little family off the ship and into this house. I’m grateful for that. She never got enough sleep on _Voyager_ after the kids were born, and even less on our first shipboard stint, when we were still in the Delta Quadrant. Here, though, she sleeps soundly through the night unless a thorny problem at HQ is bothering her, and even then, she always manages to set aside the cares of her days long enough to get a few hours of sound sleep. She even snores a little, although I’ve never been able to convince her of it.

There’s a third crash from downstairs. I glance at my wife, hoping against hope that she’s managed to sleep through whatever the kids have gotten themselves up to this morning. But Kathryn rolls over and squints one eye open at me.

“What the _hell_ ,” she drawls, “are they doing down there?”

I smile and settle on my side to face her. “No idea. Whatever it is, they’re doing it wrong, according to Nina, and she sounds pissed off.”

Kathryn yawns and closes her eye again. “Her dictatorial streak is something. I don’t know where she gets it from.”

With a snort of laughter, I wrap my arms around her. “It’s a mystery, all right.”

She kisses the base of my throat and snuggles close to me. “Must be from your side of the family, Chakotay.”

“Must be,” I reply. “My mother was quite a tyrant. Especially when she was organizing gardening collectives and the community tool-sharing program. So forceful, that woman. Makes a starship captain look reticent and demur.”

Kathryn pokes me in the stomach. “Your point is made.”

I kiss the top of her head. “I love how much she takes after you, Kathryn. Gives me a little insight into what you must have been like at that age.”

“I feel the same way about the boys. Izel has your wit and your intensity. And Igasho has your compassion and creativity. They’re good boys.”

I smile. “We made good babies.”

“We did indeed.”

“Wanna make some more, Admiral?”

Kathryn groans. “That ship sailed a long, long time ago, Professor, and you know it.”

I roll over onto my back and pull her on top of me. Still lithe and strong in middle age, if a little more lush here and there, she moves her body into a familiar position. “Come on,” I coax. “They’re busy. And old enough now to know they shouldn’t just walk in the door.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. The fact that we have seventeen-year-old boys terrifies me sometimes.”

“Afraid somebody’s going to be calling you ‘Granny’ too soon?”

Kathryn puts a hand over her mouth. “Oh, God. You don’t mean … “

In spite of myself, I burst out laughing. “What do you think they’re doing when they sneak out at night?”

Eyes narrowed to slits, she gives me the look that used to send hostile aliens scrambling. “I’m sure I have no idea.”

“Same thing you were doing when you snuck out, Kathryn. Same thing I was doing. Same thing teenagers have been doing since they snuck out of their clans’ caves, for that matter.” I pull her down to kiss me, hard. “Human beings being human.”

She hums her pleasure. “When you put it that way, who am I to argue?” With a crooked smile, she settles her warm, pliant body more fully over mine. I may be sixty-six, but I’m far from dead, and the feel of my wife, my one and only Kathryn, moving into her favorite position never fails to turn me on. She responds to the rise of my body with a low moan, head tipped back, eyes closed.

It’s always been like this between us. Sometimes deliberate and tender, sometimes fast and explosive, but always incandescent. I will never tire of this woman and the constant gift of our relationship. I’ve known it almost from the day we met.

I’m so caught up in the moment, reaching for the hem of her nightgown, that I almost miss the angry curse from downstairs.

Kathryn hears it, of course, and pauses in the act of divesting me of my boxers. “What was that?”

I blink up at her. “What was what?”

She cocks her head to one side. “One of the boys just clearly said, ‘God damn it, Nina, I know how to make French Toast.’ Why are they making French toast this early on a Saturday morning?”

I shrug. “They’re hungry?”

“But the boys are never out of bed before ten on Saturdays. What’s different today?” She frowns down at me. “What day is it?”

I blink, my brain still clouded with lust. “Haven’t we established that it’s Saturday?”

“The date, Professor. What’s the date?”

“January … sixteenth.” The air goes out of my lungs. Kathryn sits back on her heels.

We stare at each other for a long moment. “January sixteenth,” she says with a nod. “Twenty-six years later.”

We share a smile. “Seems like only yesterday.”

=/\=

The smell of singed circuits and burning engine grease was still clinging to my clothes when Captain Janeway summoned me to her Ready Room. It was only an hour since she’d given the order to destroy the Caretaker’s array, only an hour since I’d stopped B’Elanna from tearing her apart on the Bridge of her own ship. I’d gathered all of the Maquis in Cargo Bay One after the fighting was over. They already knew our ship was gone; I’d ordered them to _Voyager_ myself. Thanks to the crackerjack transporter tech on duty that day, we’d managed to get everyone aboard safely with no further loss of personnel.

My people weren’t exactly seeing the good in our situation quite yet, though. Mike Ayala was trying to keep everyone calm, but I could see the pain on his face even as he tried to console Kurt Bendera and Sascha Biddle. B’Elanna was pacing the length of the bay with barely restrained fury. Lon Suder had murder in his eyes, but that was nothing new. That man _scared_ me. The thought of being trapped with him on an _Intrepid_ -class ship for the next seven decades sent a shudder up and down my spine.

That was assuming Captain Janeway didn’t intend to strand us all on the next M-class planet we stumbled across, of course. I didn’t think that was her plan, but I had no way of knowing that, and neither did my crew. They were worried. The room had quieted when I walked in, but I could still hear mutterings here and there. And Seska’s voice, of course, above all the others. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Chakotay,” she said, staring me down from the back of the cargo bay. “I can’t wait to hear your plan.”

Her smirk irritated me. I think it always had, but that was the moment that it became a conscious thought. “There’s no plan, Seska,” I snapped. “Not beyond staying alive.”

“Without a ship?” This, from Ken Dalby. “Without backup or supplies?”

“We’ll work something out,” I said, willing myself to believe it. “There’s got to be a base where we can get another ship.”

“With what currency?” One of the Delaneys this time.

“I don’t know yet.”

Gerron stepped forward. “Could we stay here?”

“And let Janeway throw us in the Brig?” The other Delaney.

“She’s not going to do that,” I said.

“How do you know?” Frank Darwin spoke up. I stared at him. “How do you know what she’s going to do?”

I clamped down on my anger. “Look, I don’t know anything more than you do. But Captain Janeway … she sacrificed her whole crew’s way home to save an innocent race. It’s better than a lot of her ‘Fleet counterparts did when _our_ people were at risk.”

There was a grumble in the room, and the first sounds of assent, if skeptical.

Mike Ayala caught my eye. I raised my eyebrows at him. He took my hint and stepped forward. “The kid at Ops. Kim? He gave me the replicator codes. Is anybody hungry or thirsty?”

I gave him a grateful nod. “See?” I called. “That’s an act of goodwill. Let’s not assume the worst of Captain Janeway until we know what she’s thinking.”

As if on cue, the intercom sounded. _“Janeway to Cargo Bay One._ ”

I reached for the comm. “Cargo Bay One, Captain,” I replied. ‘Fleet training dies hard. “What can we do for you?”

 _“Did all of your people make it safely aboard, Mister Chakotay?”_ It didn’t occur to me to wonder how she already knew the sound of my voice.

“They did, Captain. Your transporter chief is a master.”

We barely knew each other, but I heard the smile. _“She is indeed. Did Lieutenant Kim see to the comfort of all hands?”_

I nodded, watching Mike and the Delaney sisters and Chell take orders and hand out hot drinks and food from the replicator. “He did. We thank you for your hospitality, Captain.” I turned my back to the crowd and lowered my voice. “But frankly, we’re all a little on edge right now. May I ask what your plan is for us?”

There was a pause on the other end of the comm. _“I’d like to talk to you about that. If you could meet me in my Ready Room?”_

“I’m on my way, Captain.”

B’Elanna had wandered over during the exchange. I didn’t see her until I thumbed off the comm and turned back to the room, and suddenly she was right in front of me. Her arms were crossed. “Want some backup?”

I hate to admit that for a split second, I considered it. Then I shook my head. “No. I’ve got to believe that whatever she was planning to do with us if we were still in the Alpha Quadrant is moot now.”

“You honestly don’t think we’re in any danger?”

“Not from her.”

“Because … she’s the Captain.”

I bristled. “Yes, because she’s the Captain. She went through the same training I did, Torres. It may not mean much to you, but it does to me.”

“You trust her.” It was more an accusation than a question.

I sighed. “I guess I do,” I said. And Spirits help me, I did. I only hoped Torres wouldn’t ask me why. Because I hadn’t figured it out myself, in spite of what I’d said to B’Elanna.

=/\=

When I got to the Bridge, Tuvok was at the Security station, and that little prick Paris was sitting at Conn. I ground my teeth at the sight of them and crossed silently to the Ready Room. The doors slid open as soon as I rang for entry.

Janeway was sitting at her desk with a PADD in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She looked up from whatever she was reading. “Have a seat, Mister Chakotay,” she said.

I lowered myself into the chair she offered and realized for the first time just how tired I was. She must have heard my sigh. “I’m sorry,” she said with a tight smile. “I should let you rest before we have this conversation. Clean up, at least.”

“No need,” I said. “I’m anxious to hear what your plans for my people are.”

“I’m sure.” She rose and crossed to the replicator. “Can I get you anything?”

“Water,” I replied, and then smiled to myself. “If you can spare the luxury.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Good old dihydrogen monoxide.” The replicator beeped “May we never take it for granted again.”

She came back to me with a glass of water in one hand, and two smaller glasses in the other. “But a toast is in order first.” She put the water on her desk and offered me one of the smaller glasses. A quick sniff confirmed that it was filled with a shot of good whiskey. “To _Valjean_ ,” she said, standing next to my chair. “And to the quick thinking and bravery of her Captain.”

Astonished, I looked up at her. She started to raise her glass but stopped when I stood up. “To _Voyager_ ,” I said. “And to the moral courage of _her_ Captain.”

We stared at each other for a long, charged moment. Then she held up her glass. I touched mine to it and we both drank, still holding each other’s gaze.

She downed the whiskey in one gulp and then swiped the back of her hand across her mouth. There was something vulnerable in the gesture, something that spoke to me even then.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She blinked up at me as if she were surprised by the question. Truth be told, I was surprised by it, too. Then she placed the empty whisky glass on her desk and tapped her fingertip against the rim twice. When she looked up at me again, I had the sudden sense that she was rethinking whatever speech she’d been about to give me.

“This is a very small ship,” she said softly.

“How many did you lose?”

A shadow crossed her face before she turned away from me. “Too many.”

“Can you still operate the ship?”

“Probably. But It’ll mean constant exhaustion for all of us.”

“So you intend to stay on board.”

“Yes.” She wandered to the upper level of the Ready Room. “And start making our way home.”

I stared at her back, at her ramrod straight spine. The very idea of it was absurd. A small ship, understaffed, with no backup and no support. No Starbase to put in for repairs or recharge the replicators. No HQ to turn to for advice. No way to contact families or loved ones. A small ship, alone.

And what had I told my crew? That we’d find a ship somehow? Another small ship – _smaller_ ship – equally alone.

Janeway stood silhouetted against the starfield, dwarfed by the space ahead of her. And suddenly, my path seemed crystal clear.

“I can help you,” I said. The words were completely at odds with the man I was becoming in the Maquis … but they were some of the easiest words I’ve ever said. They felt right. _I_ felt right, maybe for the first time in years. “I want to help you.”

Her head dropped forward and her shoulders slumped for an instant, as if the fatigue and uncertainty of the past few days had finally caught up with her. When she turned back to me, the gratitude in her eyes was unmistakable. “Cavit was a good man,” she whispered. “You’ll have big shoes to fill.”

It only took me a second to realize what she was offering. I nodded. “I’ll do my best to honor his memory, Captain.”

She stepped down to me. “Your crew?”

“They’re pragmatic. They’ll balk at first, and a few of them might be … difficult.” I thought of Lon Suder, back in the cargo bay, and Seska. _Shit, Seska._ Well, at least I finally had the excuse to break things off there and make it stick. “But I can keep them in line until they understand that this is the best option for all of us.”

She took another step closer to me. “This will be a Starfleet vessel, Mister Chakotay. Starfleet rules, regulations, and principles.”

I cocked my head at her. “I understand that, Captain. I am an Academy and Command training graduate, same as you. It’s the best framework we have for maintaining order and working toward a common goal. Some of my people won’t like it, but if they want to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, this is the best way to make it happen.”

“And if they don’t? I’d understand why some of you … some of _them_ … might not want to return.”

I shrugged. A few days ago I’d been fighting for a cause that now seemed far away and fading fast. “Then we find suitable planets for them, if that’s what they want.” I thought of Kurt, a rebel through and through. He might be a tricky sell. And Seska. Always Seska.

One more step, and she was as close to me as she’d been when she stopped me from firing on Paris. “And you, Chakotay. What assurances can you give me about you?”

“Me?”

She raised her chin. “I’ve read your file. Exemplary performance. Two Pike Medals of Valor for conduct at Wolf-359. More than one Purple Heart. Despite your penchant for putting yourself in the line of fire, Captain T’Vel was about to promote you to First Officer when you resigned. If you had stayed in Starfleet, you’d have made Captain by now. You might even have been Captain of _Voyager_.”

“What are you asking me, Captain?”

She crossed her arms. “You’re three years older than I am but you graduated five years ahead of me. You have more experience than I do. Will you be able to accept my authority, Mister Chakotay?”

“We have the same training,” I pointed out again. “Until I resigned my commission, I was Starfleet through and through, just like you. I resigned because I was disillusioned with people I thought I respected. I’ve been angry at Starfleet and the Federation for a long time. But what you did today to protect the Ocampa … It reminded me of the ideals that made me want to be an officer in the first place. I can’t say that you’ve restored my faith, but you have earned my respect.”

“I appreciate that,” she said. “I surmise your respect is not lightly given.”

“It isn’t. And I know exactly how hard you worked to get to your position. I respect that as well. I can’t promise I’ll be the model First Officer, Captain, but I think I can be the First Officer you need. And I _can_ promise that you will never have to watch your back. Not with me.”

She nodded. “One last thing. Tom Paris. I intend to make him my conn officer. Will you have a problem with that?”

I grimaced. “No, Captain. He may be an asshole, but he’s a good pilot. And I’ll make sure the Maquis don’t kill him. My life apparently belongs to him anyway.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me, but let the remark go. Instead, she held out her hand to me. “We’re agreed, then?”

Rather than take her hand, I crossed to the replicator and ordered two more whiskeys. She followed me, her whole face a question. I handed her a glass. “To _Voyager_ and her Captain,” I said.

“To her new First Officer,” she replied.

I made to touch my glass to hers, but she held up a hand to stop me.

“Computer,” she said, “Note a change to the ship’s roster, effective immediately. Chakotay, First Officer, provisional rank of Lieutenant Commander.”

The computer beeped its compliance.

Captain Janeway looked up at me. “Anything else?”

“Do you know what the date is? Old calendar?”

“January … sixteenth.”

“To January sixteenth,” I said.

“To a little ship,” she said, “lost in a big universe.”

“Little ship. Big universe.” I touched my glass to hers. “Let’s go.”

We both drank. Then she nodded once, a quick dip of her chin that I would soon learn meant the matter, whatever it was, had been settled to her satisfaction. I knew I had a lot of work to do to bring my people around, but I felt it was good work for a good cause.

Just before I left the Ready Room to go talk to my crew, she gave me a crooked smile that moved something in me, something I couldn’t name. It was years before I realized that in that moment, the hard knot of anger in me had finally begun to unwind.

=/\=

Kathryn’s hand on my cheek pulls me from the memory. “What is it?”

I turn my head to kiss her palm. “Just remembering. Your whole universe had fallen apart that day, but you were so calm about it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Externally, maybe. Internally, I was screaming in terror.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

She leans down to kiss me. “Believe it. A few days into my first command, and I’d lost a third of my crew and stranded us seven decades from home.” She takes my hand and laces her fingers with mine. “And to top it all off, there _you_ were, larger than life, sacrificing your ship to save mine. You, with your dark eyes and dimples and your deep, quiet voice, telling me I wouldn’t have to watch my back with you. I _immediately_ started watching my back with you.”

I give her the most innocent expression I can muster with her straddling me like this. “Because you thought I’d mutiny?”

She howls. “Not in a million years.”

I grin up at her. “Then what were you so afraid of?”

“Everything about you just screamed ‘danger,’ especially after you came back to the Bridge in uniform. I do love a man in uniform.”

She wriggles her hips and I can’t help but buck up at her. We both gasp. “Pretty sure you love a man _out_ of uniform even more, Kathryn.”

She pretends to think about it. “You may be right,” she says, and reaches for my boxers again.

It’s slow and leisurely this time. I’m mesmerized, as always, by her face as she rides me to her completion. She is magnificent and free, a stark contrast to the tightly coiled woman who welcomed me to her Ready Room twenty-six years ago today. I’m a lucky man, to be allowed to see both sides of her.

Boneless, she lays the length of her body against mine, skin to skin. I hold her hips against me, enjoying her heat, until I need to move again. She raises her head and licks my ear. “Your turn, handsome,” she whispers. I wrap my arms around her back and roll us both over until I have her pinned under me. She raises her knees and I groan at the changed angle. When she wraps her legs around my waist and locks her ankles behind me, I lose all ability to think. Instinct takes over as it always does, and in an instant I’m no longer a sixty-six-year-old man with bad knees and a gut that won’t go away. I’m forty years old, I’m looking down into blue eyes full of determination and passion, and my whole universe is shifting in ways I can’t even begin to fathom.

=/\=

The smell of fresh coffee finally pulls us both from the bed.

Kathryn slips back into her nightgown and shrugs on a robe. I find my boxers on the floor and grab sweatpants and a Starfleet Academy T-shirt. The dog, Emmett, meets us at the foot of the stairs and follows us into the kitchen. The kids are all waiting at the kitchen table. Nina is tapping on the table with her fingertips, the picture of eleven-year-old impatience. “We thought you’d never get up,” she says.

Igasho, always hungry, helps himself to three thick slices of French toast from the platter in the middle of the table. “It was getting pretty hard to wait.”

Izel peers from me to his mother and back again. “Must have really been asleep to have missed all the commotion.” He smirks, and I dearly hope Kathryn hasn’t seen it.

“What’s the occasion?” I ask. My wife swats me on the arm.

Nina looks up with a frown. “January sixteenth, right?” She stares at her brothers. “That’s the day, isn’t it? The day they met?”

Kathryn pats her hand. “Not the day we met, sweetheart, but the day I asked your father to be my First Officer.”

I slide two slices of French toast onto my plate. “Technically, Kathryn, you didn’t ask. I offered.”

She turns to frown at me. “That’s not how I remember it.”

“Nevertheless, that’s how it happened.” I pour maple syrup over my breakfast. “You said Cavit was a good man and I’d have big shoes to fill. I said I’d do my best, and then you changed the ship’s roster.”

Kathryn pours us each a cup of coffee. “No, I’m sure that’s not right. I’m sure I asked you to serve under me.”

I choke on my French toast. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her wink. “That’s not right, either.” I sip my coffee and decide to play along. “That happened a couple weeks later, and it was _me_ asking _you_ if you would have served under me. A question you refused to answer.”

“Oh, I think you’ve gotten your answer and then some,” Kathryn says, and hides her chuckle behind a cup of coffee.

Only Izel seems to be following the exchange. “This conversation is killing my appetite,” he mutters.

Nina still looks worried. “But we have the right day, right? January sixteenth?”

“January sixteenth,” I confirm. “A day that made this day, twenty-six years later, possible.”

“Okay, good,” Nina breathes. “I was afraid we did all this for nothing.”

“Who’s ‘we?’” Igasho yelps, his mouth half-full of food. “I did all the cooking.”

“Only because I’m too short for the cooktop, and Izel always burns everything.”

“Hey!” Izel protests.

“At least you come by it honestly,” I say, and Kathryn kicks me under the table.

Breakfast is noisy and messy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The kids bicker about food and music and whose turn it is to clear the table and walk the dog. Kathryn and I just sit back and listen and watch.

Once the food is all gone and the arguments about chores settled, I glance out the kitchen window. Snow is starting to fall on southern Indiana. I catch Kathryn’s eye and nod toward the window. “Maybe it’s our turn to walk the dog?” She smiles. My Kathryn loves being in space, but she can’t resist a walk in the snow.

Ten minutes later, we’re bundled up and walking hand-in-hand along the creek that runs behind the house and down into the valley. Emmett barks at a squirrel and I let him off the leash. In a flash, he’s nothing but a blur of fur darting among the leafless trees.

The winter morning is peaceful, the air filled with fat white flakes and our own soft footfalls. It’s beautiful, all of this, and so improbable. So … unfathomable to the man I was twenty-six years ago. I catch my breath at the unlikeliness of it all, and the rightness.

Kathryn squeezes my hand. “You’re very quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“You. The kids. How we came to be here.”

“Deep thoughts for a Saturday morning.”

“I suppose so.” We walk along for a time. “Did you ever imagine it could be like this for us? All those years ago, I mean. Did this ever cross your mind?”

She pauses before answering. “Truthfully, no. Not right away. I was too consumed with getting us home to even think about what ‘home’ actually could mean.”

I stop walking and pull her around to face me. “It wasn’t easy for you out there.”

“No, it wasn’t. But it got better. You made it better.” I lean down to kiss her, just a soft touch. Her lips are cool against mine.

“Later, though?” she continues. “Yes, I imagined it. Maybe not this exact scenario, but I wondered what it might be like.”

I nod. “So did I. Not right away, but it wasn’t long. And I’m glad I made your journey better.”

She smiles. “You did. Even when I wasn’t able to admit it, I knew what you were doing, and I was grateful for it.”

“You made my journey meaningful, Kathryn. I may not have imagined this exact scenario, either, but because of you, I was finally able to imagine a life of something other than anger. I could see a full life instead of an empty one. And I’ll always be grateful for that.”

She’s in my arms, then, and I hear her sniffle against my coat. I shed a tear or two myself, but they’re happy tears, and fleeting.

The dog trots back to us with a stick in his mouth. Kathryn obliges and throws the stick back the way we’ve come. The dog pounces after it and we follow. We make our way back toward the house in a series of stops and starts, measured by the length of Kathryn’s throws and the dog’s eager chases.

It’s a journey twenty-six years in the making, and one that I hope will never end.

###

**Author's Note:**

> Twenty-six years. WOW. I was twenty-four years old, in grad school in a new city. I had just met the man I would marry, although we hadn't even started dating at the time. I loved Voyager immediately. Still do, in spite of its flaws. It had so much potential right from the start. I guess it's that potential, unfulfilled, that keeps bringing me back to the show, and to these two characters in particular. Hope you liked this. It was fun to write. I'd never given the critical scene, the one we never saw between Janeway and Chakotay, a try. I'm not sure I got it right, but it's maybe one way it could have happened. Happy Voyager Anniversary Day!


End file.
